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by dauntlesszemrys
Summary: Post-Reichenbach Johnlock oneshot. A sad song on the radio is heard by two soulmates in two very different places.


The flat was silent except for the radio, turned down low. John sat in Sherlock's chair with Sherlock's heavy Belstaff coat around his shoulders. The fire was raging and the snow piled up on the windowsill. Tea steamed in its mug, but to John, nothing tasted good anymore. Nothing satisfied him anymore. On the mantle, rested a framed photograph of Sherlock. The ONLY picture John had been allowed to take.

It had been Christmas, and John needed to make greeting cards for his family. Sherlock fought against it for all of a week before John got his way and bodily dragged the skinny consulting detective into the photography studio and they got the picture. Sherlock wore the most Christmas-y thing he owned at the time, a maroon button up. John wore his normal black and red patterned jumper. The picture was a reminder of happy times; times when Sherlock was still living. It was a time before that awful fall.

John set down the tea, sensing another bout of tears to come. The emotion bubbled to the surface and spilled over. The tears burned his skin and got caught up in his unshaven stubble. John never felt the need to shave anymore. He never felt the need to do anything anymore other than cry, sleep in Sherlock's bedroom, and go to work to pay the rent.

The radio DJ played a sad song by Daughtry. Who else, John wondered, had lost a loved one and was listening to this exact same song? Love… John loved Sherlock more than he ever had anyone else in his life. Sherlock saved the army doctor from a sad pathetic existence. He had scooped up a middle aged man with a limp and a tremor and gave him something to live for. A destiny was fulfilled on that first day in Bart's. They were soul mates till death and beyond. Sherlock was John's saving angel, despite what everyone else thought. Sherlock was an angel on earth.

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Sherlock felt the drug seep into his skin. Could this take away the pain of not being with John? Somewhere in Russia, in a dingy flat with only a bed and a small radio, he tried to forget about the fall. Damn Moriarty and damn his network of mindless morons. He shivered and watched in horror as his skin contracted and relaxed over clearly visible ribs. Sherlock ran a hand through the short gingery curls he now possessed and down to the wire frame glasses that fit on his nose bridge.

The radio played some sad song with a male singer. An image of John popped up before his very eyes. John smiled and laughed and reached out a hand to him. His secret love was standing in front of him, asking him to dance. Sherlock stood on icy feet and shuffled forward with a spindly limb outstretched.

Sherlock took the outstretched hand and pulled himself into the imaginary embrace of strong arms. He rested his head on John's chest and they swayed back and forth together. Sherlock shed tears. He shed actual genuine tears, not the crocodile tears he used for cases. The emotion poured out of him like a monsoon. A voice sang the song in his ear and he shivered again, wishing he had put a shirt on before taking the heroin vial.

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John stood up and invited an invisible Sherlock to dance. He could still perfectly picture the raven curls, blue green eyes, and cheekbones. Sherlock ran into his arms and John pretended to hold him there, swaying back and forth to the music. "Well I'm going home, back to the place where I belong. And where your love has always been enough for me," John sang along to the melody. "Sherlock, I love you."

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"John, I love you," Sherlock whimpered out at last, collapsing to his knees on the floor. He held himself and sobbed. Several times in his life, Sherlock had been told he didn't have a heart, and that he was more machine than man. Now, the tin man with no heart felt it shatter into a million and one pieces. John was Sherlock's hero. He had said once that heroes didn't exist. The consulting detective, the genius, couldn't have been more wrong.

They each said a silent prayer that night, for a love that could never be.


End file.
